Exclusive: David Cameron aide complained about John Longworth to British Chambers of Commerce hours before he was suspended

Nora Senior, the President of the British Chambers of Commerce, revealed that
she was contacted by a Downing Street aide on Friday after John Longworth,
the organisation's director general, said Britain could have a "brighter
future" outside the EU

John Longworth, the former director general of the British Chambers of CommercePhoto: Reuters

An aide to David Cameron made a complaint about one of Britain's biggest business leaders hours before he was suspended for speaking out in favour of a Brexit, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Nora Senior, the President of the British Chambers of Commerce, revealed that she was contacted by a Downing Street aide on Friday after John Longworth, the organisation's director general, said Britain could have a "brighter future" outside the EU.

He was suspended just hours later for breaching the organisation's commitment to neutrality and has since resigned so that he can voice his views freely, prompting one MP to describe him as the first" Brexit martyr" of the referendum campaign.

It also emerged that Daniel Korski, one of the Prime Minister's special advisers, contacted Mr Longworth to raise concerns about remarks that were critical of the "in" campaign that he had made on the radio before his keynote speech to the BCC conference the day before on Thursday.

John Longworth Photo: REUTERS

Eurosceptics said the news appeared to contradict claims by Downing Street over the weekend that its officials had not brought pressure to bear on the BCC over Mr Longworth's position.

It came as it emerged that two local chairmen in the BCC's network of chambers of commerce had been allowed to back the Remain campaign and had not been suspended.

Number 10 spent the weekend denying claims that it had pressured the BCC over Mr Longworth, once he declared on Thursday that he personally supported Brexit.

On Saturday a Downing Street spokesman said: "We are clear no pressure was put on the BCC to suspend him. Of course No 10 talks to business organisations regularly - but to be clear: no pressure was applied. This decision is entirely a matter for the BCC."

However Ms Senior told The Telegraph that a Number 10 official had phoned her on Friday morning to ask about the row "about getting clarity on BCC's position on the referendum".

She added: "I think there might have been one Number 10 official. That would have been on Friday. All the media stuff started to come out and a lot of it had aligned John's comments to the BCC. Really it was about getting clarity."

John Longworth, who quit as director general of the British Chambers of Commerce Photo: THE TELEGRAPH

The admission prompted politicians to claim that Downing Street had attempted a "cover up" of its contacts with the BCC.

Liam Fox, the former defence secreary, said: "The fact the Government would try to influence a group like the British Chambers of Commerce to sack someone as respectable as John Longworth is bad enough. If then attempts were made to cover this trail then it is an even more serious matter.”

Mr Longworth quit on Sunday evening, telling the Telegraph that Mr Cameron had been peddling “highly irresponsible” scare stories to keep Britain in the EU.

His enforced sabbatical gave Dr Fox time to 'rediscover' reading, and to talk to a range of leaders from both sides of the Atlantic about their concerns about globalisation Photo: OLI SCARFF

In an interview on Sky News on Monday, he refused to deny that pressure had been brought to bear on the BCC by the Government which wants Britain to stay in the EU at the referendum on June 23.

He said: "What I can say is that Government departments including No 10 from my experience contact business representatives all the time and express their views, sometimes strong views and strident views. In my experience it has never affected my judgement. I have always represented business views without fear or favour."

Separately, it emerged that the BCC had allowed its chairmen of the Kent and Cornwall Chambers of Commerce to endorse publicly the Remain campaign.

In his speech last Thursday, delivered to an audience of hundreds of BCC members at the Queen Elizabeth II conference hall in Westminster, he warned that the European Union was "incapable of meaningful reform".

“My first observation is that it has reinforced my long held belief that the very best place for the UK to be is in a reformed European Union.

“My second observation is that I have come to the conclusion that the European Union is incapable of meaningful reform, at least in the foreseeable future.

“It certainly does not appear capable of the sort of reform necessary to give the UK the breathing space to fulfil its true potential.”

Mr Longworth was even more emphatic in a series of broadcast interviews after the event.

“I actually went on in my speech beyond what the Chambers of Commerce believe, to talk a little bit about what my analysis of the evidence has been," he said.

“And my analysis of the evidence is that actually, with the reforms that we received so far, the UK would be better off taking a decision to leave the European Union.”

Government special advisers are meant to be the anonymous oil that lubricates the machinery of the civil service and get things done for ministers, Christopher Hope writes.

But Daniel Korski, the £93,000 a year Downing Street special adviser, has turned those rules on their head and found himself unwittingly playing a controversial role in the early days of the European Union referendum campaign.

Last week he contacted John Longworth, the British Chambers of Commerce director general, asking for an explanation for the eurosceptic comments on the radio ahead of this speech to the BCC's annual conference.

Last month Mr Korski was blamed for a clumsy attempt to persuade former military top brass to sign a letter backing his boss David Cameron's EU renegotiation.

Following the publication of the letter Field Marshal Lord Bramall said he had signed because it had been presented as a "fait accompli", and that it was "not the kind of letter I would have originated myself".

That came after he warned EU diplomats at a private lunch that foreign leaders should think twice before publicly belittling or criticizing Mr Cameron's renegotiation.

Mr Korski had suggested that Number 10 should be consulted prior to any speeches or other big statements aimed at domestic audiences, according to reports.

Before dabbling in the choppy waters of the EU referendum campaign, Mr Korski had made his name in Number 10 as special adviser to Mr Cameron on science and technology, succeeding the highly rated Rohan Silva who left to found a digital start-up.

Prior to coming to Downing Street, Mr Korski had held diplomatic positions in Iraq, Afghanistan as well as Washington. He also undertook a secondment to the U.S. State Department under then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In 2008 he helped establish the bi-partisan think tank the European Council on Foreign Relations.

He has worked as an adviser to former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell MP and for Baroness Ashton, when she was the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

He also served other spells with Ed Llewellyn, Mr Cameron's chief of staff in Downing Street, when Mr Llewellyn was chief of staff to former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown, as the then-UN High Representative of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Mr Korski is the son of Polish Jewish refugees, who were expelled from Poland in the late 1960s, and was educated at the London School of Economics, where he gained a First, and at then at Cambridge University.